As I was working on the web services usage scenarios document, a minor
revelation struck me.
At some point, we will be asked, or some TAG member will ask, that the TAG
review SOAP 1.2. The issue of GET encoded SOAP requests will come up. I'm
not against a GET encoding of a subset of SOAP requests, but I don't believe
it's a horrendous web violation nor should soap 1.2 and subsequent web
services work be slowed down. But it's clear that a number of TAG members
think that at least some SOAP requests should be GET expressible.
So when the fateful question is asked, here's some suggested wordings for
how to deal with SOAP 1.2 and the wsarch group.
"The TAG finds that there SHOULD be a usage scenario in the web services
architecture, specifically there SHOULD be a standardized mechanism for
using HTTP GET to retrieve some SOAP messages, particularly for
browser/hyper-link traversal applications. The TAG suggests to the Web
Services Architecture Working Group that it SHOULD add such a usage scenario
in it's efforts. Further, the TAG believes there SHOULD a simple solution
that hits an 80/20 mark. The TAG believes a simple solution SHOULD be
treated as a high priority item for the wsawg in it's efforts."
The web services architecture wg is currently creating and prioritizing use
cases and requirements for the chartering and rechartering of working
groups. This places the onus for the GET based usage scenario into the web
services arch group - which has responsibility for ALL web services usage
scenarios and initial charter proposal activities. There are members of
wsawg that are deeply involved in this debate as well, so we're covered in
that account.
It gets us out of this "Change SOAP now or the web is doomed" death spiral
we are on, and meets at least most of the needs of the interested TAG
membership. Further, it gets the TAG out of doing the design work and into
the activity that really knows about SOAP.
This would go hand in hand with whatever we do with issue 7, and would be
the prepared in advance position for how SOAP 1.2 would relate to the issue
7 finding.
Obviously, I can commit to representing this fairly on wsawg.
What do y'all think?
Cheers,
Dave